West Yorkshire League: Ripon City ‘need four wins’

Dan Windham

Ripon City need four wins from their remaining seven games to avoid relegation to Division One, according to manager Steve Donoghue.

Donoghue saw his side slip back to the bottom of the Premier Division on Saturday after a 2-0 defeat at home to second-placed Horbury Town.

The defeat leaves Ripon nine points from safety but Donoghue is still ‘optimistic’ about survival as his side still have to face the three teams directly above them.

As well as beating local rivals Boroughbridge, East End Park and Brighouse, Donoghue said that his side must pick up one more win and is hoping it comes against Beeston on Saturday.

He said: “I have the squad I want and if we play like we did on Saturday when we play some of these other teams then we should survive.

“It’s clear that East End Park are picking up points now so we need to make sure we get something from the game against Beeston.

“We have to go with the same attitude that we did against Bardsey and Horbury. We have no midweek games which is a bonus so I’m still optimistic. But we need to be more clinical in front of goal, we need to get a lead and keep it.”

After going in against Horbury on Saturday level, Donoghue was disappointed to end up on the losing side but said, with hindsight, his side should have taken their first half chances.

He said: “We needed to go in leading because we dominated the first half but just could not score.

“We really should have had more shots but we came out in the second half and we played fine to start with but they used their extra bit of quality.”